• The story of Jamaican feminist poet Una Marson – the first black woman employed by the BBC, Trinidadian JJ Thomas’ scathing rebuttal of English colonialism, and, manuscripts of Andrea Levy’s novel Small Island are among highlights of a new exhibition at the British Library.Windrush: Songs in a Strange Land marks 70 years since the MVEmpire Windrush first carried hundreds of migrants to London and explores why they came, what they left behind and how they came to shape Britain. The free exhibition in the library’s Entrance Hall on Euston Road, which opens Friday, also features Benjamin Zephaniah’s poem What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us, personal reflections from some of the first Caribbean nurses to join the NHS and sounds of the Caribbean including jazz to calypso music. Runs until 21st October. For more, see www.bl.uk.

• Join in a celebration of London’s ‘grassroots music’ in June. Sounds Like London features more than 200 gigs across the capital including a series of gigs aimed at raising money for the Music Venue Trust’s Emergency Response service which supports grassroots music venues threatened by closure, 11 ‘Airbnb Concerts’ and X-pose, an event showcasing the capital’s leading deaf musicians and DJs. The full programme of events can be found at www.london.gov.uk/sounds-like-london.

• The political orator, writer and elocutionist John Thelwall (1764-1834) has been commemorated with an English Heritage Blue Plaque located on the site of his pioneering institution of elocution. Thelwall, described as one of the most popular and effective orators of his day and known as a champion of free speech and universal suffrage as well as being a fierce critic of the French Revolution, opened his ‘Seminary for the cultivation of the science and practice of elocution, and the cure of impediments of speech’ at 40 Bedford Place in Bloomsbury in 1806. The Grade II-listed property, now in use as a hotel, was newly built at the time. The institution remained at the site for seven years before moving to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/

May 17, 2018

• From coaching inns to horse markets, riverside mansions to gin palaces – the ‘lost’ buildings of London form the focus of a new exhibition which opens at the City of London Corporation’s London Metropolitan Archives in Clerkenwell on Monday.Picturing Forgotten London features drawings, engravings, photographs, maps, films and contemporary recollections displayed under themes including entertainment, food, commerce and trade, and transport. Through the exhibition, visitors will discover frost fairs (pictured), ‘open-shout’ trading floors, pleasure gardens, almshouses, cabmen’s shelters, dockyards, farms and a 1960s supermarket. Among the highlights are a look at the notorious Westminster neighbourhood known as Devil’s Acre and images of such lost landmarks as Euston Arch and Crystal Palace as well as Geoffrey Fletcher’s observational drawings of 60s and 70s London and a large scale reproduction of an 1867 illustrated map of public buildings, theatres, music halls and other landmarks known as The Strangers Guide. Admission is free. Runs until 31st October. For more, follow this link. PICTURE: Courtesy of the City of London Corporation’s London Metropolitan Archives.

• Marking 50 years since a series of significant protests took place around the world, a new display at Tate Britain in Millbank shows how artists responded to what it calls a “watershed moment in political and social history”.London: 1968 features a series of iconic agin-prop posters by the Camden Poster Workshop who moved their studio into the London School of Economics during the student occupation in October. They provide a visual record of some of the key issues of the time including industrial strikes, the Vietnam War, and civil rights movements in Ireland, America and South Africa. There’s also a Patricia Holland film looking at the occupation of the Hornsey School of Art and work by radical artists such as Barry Flanagan, Richard Long, Joseph Beuys and Mario Merz who all participated in a landmark exhibition at London’s ICA in 1969. The display, which is free to see, coincides with another free display at Tate Modern – 1968: Protest and the Photobook – which brings together politically engaged photobooks made during this period. London: 1968 runs until 31st October. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

• A posthumous Victoria Cross awarded to Corporal Bryan Budd for bravery in Afghanistan has gone on display at the Imperial War Museum London in Lambeth. Corporal Budd, who served in the 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, was awarded the VC on 14th December, 2006, for two separate acts of gallantry in Helmand Province – the first in an incident on 27th July that year when he initiated a daring attack on the enemy in order to evacuate a wounded comrade, and the second, on 20th August, when he led a surprise attack on a Taliban position, killing several enemy but sustaining wounds from which he died. The VC, which was purchased by Lord Ashcroft, is the most recent now in his collection – prior to its acquisition the most recent he had was awarded to Sergeant Ian McKay in October, 1982, for gallantry during the Falklands War. For more, see www.iwm.org.uk.

April 19, 2018

• The relationship between the glitzy world of fashion and the raw materials used to make it is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the V&A on Saturday.Fashioned from Nature features more than 300 “beautiful, intriguing and unsettling objects” spanning the period since 1600 and including everything from a a pineapple fibre clutch bag, a Calvin Klein dress made from recycled bottles worn by actor Emma Watson (pictured) and a cape of cockerel feathers. One focus of the exhibition is the damage done to the environment due to the demands of fashion and the display highlights some of the campaigners and groups which have been vocal in protesting about the issue. The display also looks at the role design has played in creating a more sustainable fashion industry. Runs until 27th January, 2019. Admission charge applies. For more, see vam.ac.uk/fashionedfromnature. PICTURE: Emma Watson wearing Calvin Klein at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Benefit Celebrating the Opening of Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, Arrivals, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, New York, America, 2nd May 2016 (Matt Baron/REX/Shutterstock).

• The British Museum has kicked off a first-of-its-kind two week festival of musical performances exploring the idea of museums as “diplomats of the 21st century”. Running until 29th April, Europe and the world: a symphony of cultures explores Europe’s interactions with the world and looks to create a dialogue between works of classical and contemporary music and objects in the museum which have come from around the world. There’s 17 performances taking place over the two weeks which started last Monday as well as some panel discussions. The works include those of Ligeti, Berio, Stockhausen, Liszt, Messiaen, Strauss, Bartók, and Nono and are being performed along with pieces from historical musical traditions such as medieval temple music from China, classical music from India, Spanish colonial and flamenco music, Spiritual Japanese music from the 7th century and Byzantine choral music. Among those performing are London Sinfonietta, Ensemble für Intuitive Musik Weimar, Accademia del Piacere, Zhang Jun and his Kunqu Ensemble, Kaushikiji Charkraborty and Ensemble, and Reigakusha Ensemble Tokyo. Supported by the German Foreign Office, more details on the festival can be found at www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/europe_and_the_world.aspx.

• Tate Britain has launched a series of new night events curated by young people aged 15 to 25. The gallery, which already held the first event in early April, will open late on the first Friday evenings of June, August, October and December for a series of special events featuring music, live performances and workshops and inspired by displays, exhibitions and artworks in Tate’s collections including the current Art Now installation by Marguerite Humeau, John Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, the upcoming Duveens Commission by Anthea Hamilton​ and the Turner Prize. Lates at Tate Britain are free, drop-in events with spaces available on a first come, first served basis. For more, head to www.tate.org.uk.

• A Francis Bacon portrait of Lucian Freud is being shown for the first time since 1965 in a new exhibition at Tate Britain celebrating human life in painted works.All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life features around 100 works by artists including Walter Sickert, Stanley Spencer, Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, RB Kitaj, Leon Kossoff, Paula Rego, Jenny Saville, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and others, as well as groups of major and rarely seen works by Freud and Bacon. Among the works by the latter are Freud’s Frank Auerbach (1975-76) and Sleeping by the Lion Carpet (1996) and Bacon’s Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne (1966) and Study After Velazquez (1950). Runs until 27th August. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

• The legacy of the world’s first slave revolution – the Haitian Revolution – is explored in an exhibition at The British Museum.A revolutionary legacy: Haiti and Toussaint Louverture charts how the revolution led to the abolition of slavery and the formation of Haiti as an independent republic in 1804 and features a selection of objects commemorating the man who emerged as the revolution’s foremost leader, Toussaint Louverture. Among them is a screenprint, specially acquired for this exhibition, showing Louverture in military uniform by the African American artist Jacob Lawrence. There’s also a Haitian Vodou boula drum dating from the early 1900s, a Haitian banknote commemorating the nation’s bicentenary in 2004, a Senegalese coin commemorating the abolition of slavery and the cover of CLR James’ account of the revolution, Black Jacobins, written in 1938 and reissued during the civil rights movement in 1963. Haitian-born poet Gina Ulysee will perform a specially commissioned work which responds to the display on 16th March. Part of The Asahi Shimbun Displays, it runs until 22nd April in Room 3. Free entry. For more, including associated events, see www.britishmuseum.org.

• A series of photographs recalling the removal of The National Gallery’s paintings to a disused slate mine in Snowdonia during World War II will go on show at the gallery on Monday. The 24 images document the dispersal of the paintings to Manod with five additional images by photographer Robin Friend showing the quarry as it looks today. There’s also a 30 minute film directed by Friend, Winged Bull in the Elephant Case, which follows the journey of a National Gallery painting that has taken human form as it tries to save its friends and get back to London (it can be seen on Saturday on BBC2 at 10pm). The free display – Manod: The Nation’s Treasure Caves – can be found in the Annenberg Court until 8th April. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk.

January 8, 2018

It was 90 years ago this month – 6th and 7th January, 1928 – that the River Thames flooded disastrously in what was the last major flood in central London.

Fourteen people are reported to have died and some 4,000 made homeless when the river burst its banks and spilled over the top of the Thames Embankment. Part of the Chelsea Embankment collapsed.

The flood – which was blamed on a range of factors including a sudden thaw upstream, heavy rain, a tidal surge and the impact of dredging – peaked at about 1.30am on 7th January at a height of 18 foot, three inches (5.56 metres) above ordnance datum.

The city saw extensive flooding on the City of London itself as well as in Southwark and as far upriver as Putney and Hammersmith and downriver in Greenwich and Woolwich as well as beyond.

Most of the deaths occurred when the embankment gave way near Lambeth Bridge and a wall of water swept through the slums on the Westminster side of the bridge with 10 people losing their lives.

Among the buildings flooded were the Tate Gallery at Millbank – where many works including some by JMW Turner were damaged, parts of the Houses of Parliament including Westminster Hall and the House of Commons, numerous Underground stations and Blackwall and Rotherhithe tunnels. The moat of the Tower of London, dry for 80 years, was filled.

While the flood waters receded by the end of the day, the damage took years to repair with many buildings in Millbank, the worst affected area, demolished. Embankments were raised in the wake of the flooding but it wasn’t until after the North Sea flood of 1953 that authorities took action to build the Thames Barrier (it was eventually completed in 1982).

Above – A marker recording the height of the flood outside Trinity Hospital in Greenwich (the plaque below right records the details).

September 21, 2017

• Sir Simon Rattle, in his first season as the music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, is the subject of a recently opened exhibition at the Barbican Music Library.Rattle follows the life of a man now considered one of the world’s foremost conductors, from his birth in 1955 to the present day. Featuring photos, awards, video, letters, programmes and unseen items from family collections, it’s curated by his first manager, Martin Campbell-White, and Edward Smith, former CEO of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and has been organised by the LSO in partnership with arts management company Askonas Holt. The free exhibition runs until 22nd December. For more, follow this link.

• The works of Rachel Whiteread, one of the leading artists of her generation, have gone on show at Tate Britain. Spanning the three decades of her career, the show has everything from four early sculptures displayed in her first solo show in 1988 to works made this year especially for Tate Britain with scales ranging from the monumental to the intimate. Whiteread came to public notice in 1993 with the East End unveiling of her first public commission, House, a concrete cast of the interior of an entire terraced house. She won the Turner Prize the same year and represented the UK at the Venice Biennale in 1997 and has had solo exhibitions of her work in museums and galleries including The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the Serpentine Gallery in London and the Museums of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo. Highlights of the show include Untitled (Room 101) 2003, a cast of the room at the BBC’s Broadcasting House which was thought to be the model for Room 101 in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, a selection of Torsos – casts of hot water bottles, and Untitled (One Hundred Spaces) 1995, an installation of 100 resin casts of the underside of chairs (pictured). Runs until 21st January. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain. PICTURE: Courtesy of Tate Britain.

• An exhibition which focuses on the use of prints as an “object of trade” opens at the British Museum today.The business of prints, based in part on Antony Griffiths’ prize-winning book The Print Before Photography: An Introduction to European Printmaking 1550-1820, focuses on four major areas – the production of prints, the lettering on prints, the usage of prints and the collecting of prints and the concern for quality. Delving into the museum’s collection of more than two million prints, it features works by the likes of Durer, Rembrandt and Goya alongside those of far less famous artists. The display can be seen until 28th January in Room 90, the Prints and Drawings Gallery. Entry is free. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org.

May 12, 2016

• The “dynamic dialogue” between British painters and photographers is the subject of a new exhibition which opened at Tate Britain in Millbank this week.Painting with Light: Art and Photography from the Pre-Raphaelites to the Modern Age features almost 200 works, revealing their common influences and showing how photography adapted many of the “Old Master traditions” to create new works. Among those whose works are featured in the exhibition are everyone from David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson to JMW Turner, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rosetti and photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. Highlights include examples of three-dimensional photography which used models and props to recreate popular works of the time, including a previously unseen private album in which the Royal Family re-enact famous paintings. Runs until 25th September in the Linbury Galleries. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.PICTURE: Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), Proserpine 1874. Tate.

• The 40th anniversary of punk is being commemorated in a new exhibition which opens at the British Library tomorrow. Punk 1976-78 traces the impact of punk from its roots in the French Situationist movement and New York City art-rock scene through to the rise and fall of the Sex Pistols and looks at the impact punk had on music, fashion and design in the mid-Seventies. Located in the library’s Entrance Hall Gallery, the free display – which includes materials from the UK’s biggest punk-related archive held at Liverpool John Moores University – features a rare copy of the Sex Pistol’s God Save the Queen single, fanzines such as the first punk fanzine Sniffin’ Glue, flyers, posters and gig tickets from venues including the Roxy Club, Covent Garden and Eric’s Club, audio recordings, and original record sleeves such as John Peel’s personal copy of the Undertones’ single Teenage Kicks. There’s a full calendar of events to accompany the exhibition including John Lydon’s only live interview of the year. Runs until 2nd October. For more, see www.bl.uk/events/punk-1976-78.

• Climb St Paul Cathedral’s dome on special Sunday openings during May. And in order not to disturb Sunday services, visitors who wish to climb to the dome’s Stone Gallery and Golden Gallery will see parts of the cathedral not normally open to the public as they enter through a not-normally used side door and climb 22 extra steps. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.stpauls.co.uk.

April 14, 2016

• It’s the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death (in case you missed that), and among the many events marking the occasion comes a major exhibition at the British Library focusing on 10 key performances that it says have made the Bard the “cultural icon” he is today.Shakespeare in Ten Acts, which opens on Friday, focuses on performances which may not be the most famous but which represent key moments in shaping his legacy. They span the period the first performance of Hamlet at the Globe theatre in around 1600 to a radical interpretation of the same play from US theatre company The Wooster Group in 2013. Among the exhibition highlights are a human skull which was given to the actress Sarah Bernhardt by writer Victor Hugo (and which she used as Yorik’s skull when she played Hamlet in 1899), a dress worn by Vivien Leigh playing Lady Macbeth in the 1955 production of Macbeth at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the only surviving play script written in the Bard’s own hand and rare printed editions including Shakespeare’s First Folio and the earliest printed edition of Hamlet from 1603 (one of only two copies in the world). The exhibition, which runs until 6th September, is accompanied by a season of events. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.bl.uk. PICTURE: Shakespeare’s First Folio 1623 British Library Photo by Clare Kendall.

• Still talking exhibitions commemorating Shakespeare’s death and a manuscript of William Boyce’s Ode to the Memory of Shakespeare will be on display at The Foundling Museum’s Handel Gallery from tomorrow. The work, which was composed in 1756, was performed annually at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. The manuscript, the first page of which was thought to be lost until it was acquired in 2006, formerly belonged to Samuel Arnold, who compiled the first complete edition of Handel’s works. Runs at the Bloomsbury-based museum until 30th May. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk.

• Exquisite watercolours depicting the natural world go on show in The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace from tomorrow.Maria Merian’s Butterflies features 50 works produced by the eighteenth century German artist and entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian. The works – many of which record the flora and fauna of the then Dutch colony of Suriname in South America, were published in the 1706 work Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname) and partially printed, partially hand-painted versions of the plates were purchased by King George III for his library at Buckingham House (later Buckingham Palace). As well as insects, the works – which were based on a visit Merian made to the colony in 1699, depict lizards, crocodiles and snakes as well as tropical plants such as the pineapple. The exhibition runs until 9th October. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.royalcollection.org.uk/visit/the-queens-gallery-buckingham-palace.

• The evolution of conceptual art in Britain is the subject of a new exhibition at Tate Britain in Milbank Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979 features 70 works by 21 artists and positions conceptual art “not as a style but rather a game-changing shift in the way we think about art, how it is made and what it is for”. Highlights include Michael Craig-Martin’s An Oak Tree (1973) and Roelof Louw’s Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges) (1987) as well as Victor Burgin’s Possession (1976), Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum Document (1974-78) and Conrad Atkinson’s Northern Ireland 1968 – May Day 1975 (1975-76). Admission charge applies. Runs until 29th August. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

• An exhibition featuring more than 100 photographs by celebrated 19th century photographer Julia Margaret Cameron opens at the V&A on Saturday to mark the bicentenary of her birth. The display at the South Kensington museum offers a retrospective of her work and looks at her relationship with the V&A’s founding director Sir Henry Cole who presented the only exhibition of her work during her lifetime in 1865. Her relationship with the museum goes back to the very start of her work – within two years of being given a camera by her daughter she was selling and giving photographs to what was then the South Kensington Museum while, in 1868 she was granted the use of two rooms at the institution to use as a portrait studio, becoming the museum’s first artist-in-residence. The exhibition features original prints acquired from Cameron as well as a selection of her letters to Cole, his 1865 diary, the first photograph identified as being of her studio and a variety of her portraits in which family, friends and servants posed as characters from Biblical, historical and allegorical stories. The free exhibition runs until 21st February. For more, see www.vam.ac.uk/juliamargaretcameron.

• The influence of the British Empire on art over the past 400 years is the subject of a new exhibition which opened in Tate Britain’s Linbury Galleries yesterday.Artist and Empire will showcase art from across the empire – including the British Isles, North America, the Caribbean, the Pacific, Asia and Africa – and features some 200 paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures and artefacts. These include paintings by the likes of George Stubbs and Anthony Van Dyck through to Indian miniatures, Maori objects, and the works of contemporary artists such as Sonia Boyce and Judy Watson. Runs until 10th April at the Milbank gallery. The exhibition is free. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

August 27, 2015

• It’s all about big masted ships at Greenwich this Bank Holiday weekend as up to 15 ships drop anchor at the Royal Greenwich Tall Ships Festival. Two tall ships, the Dar Mlodziezy and Santa Maria Manuela, will be moored on Tall Ships Island in the river at Maritime Greenwich (accessed via MBNA Thames Clippers) while an additional 13 ships will be taking people on cruises from their base at Royal Arsenal Woolwich (tickets can be booked via Sail Royal Greenwich). On Saturday, a free family festival will be held in Woolwich Town Centre and at Royal Arsenal Riverside with music, roving entertainers, food and other activities including a fireworks display on the river at 10pm (fireworks can also be seen on Thursday, Friday and Sunday nights on the river at Maritime Greenwich at around 9.15pm). For more information – including how and where to book tickets, see www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/tallships2015.

• An immersive art project allowing visitors to engage with paintings in a multi sensory experience opened at Tate Britain on Milbank yesterday.Tate Sensorium has wonthis year’s annual IK Prize, presented by the Tate and supported by the Porter Foundation, awarded for a project which uses innovative technology to enable the public to explore the gallery’s collection in new ways. The display features four works by celebrated figures in 20th century painting: Francis Bacon’s Figure in a Landscape (1945), David Bomberg’s In the Hold (c 1913-1914), Richard Hamilton’s Interior II (1964) and John Latham’s Full Stop (1961). As part of the experience, which has been produced by creative studio Flying Object in conjunction with a cross-disciplinary team, visitors are offered the chance to wear biometric measurement wristbands to record the emotional impact of the experience. Admission to exhibition in gallery 34 is free but tickets are limited. Runs until 20th September. For more, see www.tate.org.uk/sensorium.

• A series of detailed paintings of fruit, vegetables and edible plants from all over the world goes on show at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens on Saturday. Nature’s Bounty features works from the Shirley Sherwood and Kew collections including works from the 19th century text, Fleurs, Fruits et Feuillages Chosis de la Flore et de la Pomona de L’ile de Java drawn by botanical artist Berthe Hoola Van Nooten as well as works from the Shirley Sherwood and Kew collections. The exhibition runs until 31st January. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.kew.org.

• The works of Barbara Hepworth, one of the UK’s greatest artists, are on show at the Tate Britain on Millbank.Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World features more than 100 works, from major carvings and bronzes to less familiar pieces. Juxtaposed with works of other great artists – including paintings, prints and drawings of her second husband Ben Nicholson, they include her earliest surviving carvings, her more purely abstract works of the late 1930s, wooden sculptures made while Hepworth lived in Cornwall in the mid-1940s and four large carvings made in the mid-1950s in African hardwood guarea which, reunited for this exhibition, arguably represent the highpoint of her carving career. There are also bronzes from her 1965 retrospective at the Kroller-Muller Museum. Runs until 25th October. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

• American artist Joseph Cornell’s art is the subject of an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly which opens on Saturday.Joseph Cornell: Wanderlust, organised in conjunction with Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna, features about 80 of the artist’s box constructions, assemblages, collages and films including rarely seen masterpieces lent from public and private collections in the US, Europe and Japan. Arranged in four sections, the display features works from his major series including Museums, Aviaries, Soap Bubble Sets, Palaces, Medici Slot Machines, Hotels and Dovecotes. Runs until 27th September. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.royalacademy.org.uk.

June 18, 2015

• The Waddesdon Bequest, a collection of medieval and Renaissance treasures left to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild in 1898, has a new home. Redisplayed in a new gallery which opened at the museum last week, the collection features the Christian relic known as Holy Thorn Reliquary (pictured) – a concocotion of gold, enamel and gems set around a thorn supposedly taken from Christ’s Crown of Thorns, the Lyte Jewel – a diamond-studded locket made in London in 1610-11 to hold a miniature of King James I and presented by the king to Thomas Lyte as thanks for a genealogy he created representing the king as a descendant of the Trojan Brutus, and the Cellini Bell – cast from silver in Nuremberg around 1600 and later displayed by Horace Walpole at his west London villa in Strawberry Hill. The bequest collection, which must always be displayed in a room of its own under its original terms, was first displayed at Baron Ferdinand’s country home of Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire (now a National Trust property) and moved to the museum after his death. The redisplay reconnects the collection with its past at the manor and the history of the museum – the room where it is now displayed, Room 2a, was the museum’s original Reading Room and part of a neo-classical suite of rooms designed by Robert Smirke in 1820. It has been given the “most ambitious digital treatment” of any permanent gallery in the institution. Admission is free. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org.

• The “enduring significance and emotional power” of British history painting is under examination in a new exhibition which opened at Tate Britain on Millbank last week.Fighting History features everything from the large scale works of 18th century painters John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West through to 20th century and contemporary works by Richard Hamilton and Jeremy Deller and looks at how they reacted, captured and interpreted key historical events. Works on show include Singleton Copley’s 1778 work The Collapse of the Earl of Chatham in the House of Lords, 7 July, William Frederick Yeames’ 1877 work Amy Robsart, John Minton’s 1952 work The Death of Nelson and Deller’s 2001 work The Battle of Orgreave, a re-enactment of 1984 protest in South Yorkshire. The exhibition also compares traditional and contemporary renderings of events from scripture, literature and the classical world and features a room dedicated to interpretations of the great Biblical flood of Noah. Runs until 13th September. Admission charges apply. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

• A limited number of early release tickets to London’s New Year’s Eve celebrations will go on sale from noon tomorrow (Friday, 19th June). The tickets, the bulk of which will be released in September, cost £10 a person with the proceeds being used to cover costs including printing and infrastructure. As was the case last year, people without tickets will not be able to access the event. To get hold of tickets, head to www.london.gov.uk/nye.

• Upton House is Warwickshire has turned the clock back to 1939 with a display dedicated to the time when the Bearstead family moved their City-based bank, M Samuel & Co, to their historic family mansion to escape the Blitz in London. Twenty-two bank staff took over the house, sleeping in shared dormitories and taking meals of rook pie in the home’s Long Gallery while secretaries typed surrounded by works of art. The National Trust has returned 12 rooms to their wartime look based on research conducted by 80 of the volunteers at the house. They’re filled with thousands of objects, from ration-book toothpaste to wartime toilet rolls, to recreate a wartime experience at the home. Outside an Anderson Shelter stands in the garden where heritage vegetables are being grown in an allotment. Visitors will also find out how 40 of the most precious works in the home were sent to a special storage facility in a Welsh slate mine to protect them. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.nationaltrust.org.uk/upton-house/

• On Now – Salt and Silver: Early Photography 1840-1860. This exhibition at Tate Britain in Millbank is the first major exhibition in Britain dedicated to salt prints, the earliest form of paper photography, and features 90 images including some of the best and rarest early photographs. The salt print technique was invented in Britain in the 1840s and 1850s and spread across the world, hence as well as portraits, still lifes and scenes from ‘modern life’, the images on show include from William Fox Talbot’s images of a Paris street to Nelson’s Column under construction, Linnaeus Tripe’s views of Puthu Mundapam in India and Auguste Salzmann’s studies of statues in Greece. Runs in the Linbury Galleries until 7th June. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

August 28, 2014

• London’s month long celebration of the River Thames kicks off on Monday with a 30 day programme of events ranging from regattas and river races to foreshore archaeology, arts, music and community festivals and environmental and educational activities. Highlights of Totally Thames include the Mayor’s Thames Festival, which runs all month and includes new art, films and performances on the riverside as well as beach combing, bonfires, walks, talks and cruises, the Royal Greenwich Tall Ships Festival, which runs from 5th to 9th September and features the largest fleet of tall ships to visit London in 25 years, the Great River Race on 27th September which has attracted more than 300 crews from across the globe, Handel’s Fireworks Music and Illuminations taking place at Hampton Court Palace on 14th September and, taking place this weekend, The Big Thames Tidy, which sees water charity Thames21 hosting one of the biggest clean-ups the river has ever seen. We’ll be mentioning events in more details as the month unfolds. To see the full programme of events, head to www.totallythames.org.

• The most significant private collection of the paintings and drawings of Frank Auerbach – described as one of Britain’s “greatest living artists” – has gone on show at Tate Britain on Millbank. The works, which span the period from Auerbach’s student days in the late 1940s until 2007, were collected by the late artist Lucian Freud and hung in his London house until his death in 2011. They include portraits of Auerbach’s friends and relatives and landscapes of London. BP Spotlight – Frank Auerbach: Painting and Drawings from the Lucian Freud Estate is on display until 9th November. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

• Now On: An Impossible Bouquet, Four Masterpieces by Jan van Huysum. This exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery features works by the 18th century Dutch artist taken from private collections as well as the Dulwich’s own painting and is aimed at showcasing the “artist’s ingenuity and astonishing ability to paint flowers, fruit and insects with minute attention to detail”. The exhibition only has a month to go – it closes on 28th September. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.

March 6, 2014

• The Vikings come to the British Museum from today with the first major exhibition in more than 30 years.Vikings: life and legend, the first exhibition to be held in the new Sainsbury Exhibition Gallery, was developed with the National Museum of Denmark and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums in Berlin) and looks at the Viking period from the late 8th century to the early 11th century. Featuring many new archaeological discoveries and objects never seen before in the UK alongside items from the British Museum’s own collection, the exhibition is centred on the surviving timbers of a 37 metre long Viking warship excavated from the banks of the Roskilde fjord in Denmark (pictured). Other items include skeletons recently excavated from a mass grave of executed Vikings in Dorset, the Vale of York Hoard (discovered in 2007) and a stunning hoard of silver from Gnezdovo in Russia. A unique live broadcast event presented by historian Michael Wood taking cinema audiences around the exhibition will be shown in cinemas across the nation on 24th April. Admission charge applies. Runs until 22nd June. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/vikings.aspx. PICTURE: Copyright of the National Museum of Denmark.

• The commemorations of the World War I centenary have commenced at the National Portrait Gallery with The Great War in Portraits. The first of a four year programme of events and displays at the gallery, the exhibition features iconic portraits of figures such as Winston Churchill, Kaiser Wilhelm, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen as well as major art works by the likes of Lovis Corinth, Max Beckmann, and Kirchner, whose painting Selbstbildnis als Soldat (Self-portrait as a Soldier) is featured, and Harold Gillies’ photographs of facially injured soldiers from the Royal College of Surgeons. Among the highlights are Jacob Epstein’s The Rock Drill, a contrasting pair of British and German films about the Battle of the Somme, and a press photograph of Gavrilo Princip, the student who sparked the flames of war when he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Elsewhere among the 80 works on display are portraits of war heroes such as VC winners are contrasted with those of soldiers disfigured by war, POWs and those shot for cowardice. Admission is free. Runs until 15th June. For more, see www.npg.org.uk/whatson/firstworldwarcentenary/exhibition.php.

• Our fascination with ruins is the subject of a new exhibition which opened this week at Tate Britain. Including more than 100 works from the likes of JMW Turner, John Constable, John Martin, Eduardo Paolozzi, Rachel Whiteread and Tacita Dean, Ruin Lust examines the craze for ruins that overtook creative types in the eighteenth century and the subsequent revisiting – and at times mocking – of this fascination by later figures. Works on show include Turner’s Tintern Abbey: The Crossing and Chancel, Looking towards the East Window 1794, Constable’s Sketch for ‘Hadleigh Castle’ c 1828-9, Graham Sutherland’s Devastation series 1940-1 – showing the aftermath of the Blitz, Jon Savage’s images of London in the late 1970s, and Whitehead’s Demolished – B: Clapton Park Estate 1996, showing the demolition of Hackney tower blocks. Runs until 18th May. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/ruin-lust.

• The ‘new’ Tate Britain was unveiled to the public this week following a £45 million upgrade and refurbishment and the house-warming party is on this weekend. The work has seen the oldest part of the Grade II* listed building in Millbank transformed thanks to architects Caruso St John and sees the main entrance reopened as well as The Whistler Restaurant, new learning studios an a new archive gallery as well as a new cafe and bar for Tate members. It’s unveiling follows the opening in May of 10 new galleries and new BP displays including the chronological presentation of the Tate’s collection of British art. The house-warming party, a free event, takes place on Saturday from 3pm to 10pm and features music, the giving out of free limited edition prints and a series of talks, film screenings, workshops and even a treasure hunt. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

• Hyde Park Winter Wonderland kicks off again tomorrow with highlights including the ice sculptures of ‘The Magical Kingdom’, the giant observation wheel, the ice rink and Santa Land. There will also be more than 200 chalets in the Angels Christmas & Yuletide Markets, the Bavarian village is back, and Zippo’s Circus will also be returning with a range of shows include Cirque Berserk for the evening crowd. Entry is free but tickets for various attractions can be bought at www.hydeparkwinterwonderland.com. Runs until 5th January.

• ON NOW: The Young Durer: Drawing the Figure. This exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery looks at the figure drawing of the young Albrect Durer (1471-1528), focusing on works created in his formative years between 1490-1496. Among the exhibition’s highlights is Mein Agnes (My Agnes), A Wise Virgin, and Three Studies of Durer’s left hand. The exhibition runs until 12th January.

• FURTHER AFIELD: Only a hop, skip and jump from London lies Down House, former home of naturalist Charles Darwin, in Kent. English Heritage are this weekend marking the anniversary of publication of his controversial book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (it was published on 24th November, 1859) with a range of specialist talks and tours at the property this weekend. For more on the weekend, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/events/origin-weekend-dh-23-nov/

November 18, 2013

The origins of this Thames-side district of London are as obvious as they sound – it was the site of a mill which stood on the west bank of the river.

The mill, which had served Westminster Abbey since at least the 16th century, stood here until about 1735 when it was demolished and replaced by a mansion built by Sir Robert Grosvenor, a member of the Grosvenor family responsible for developing parts of Mayfair.

The house was pulled down in 1809 to make way for Millbank Prison, which was the country’s first national prison and which was where prisoners were held before their transportation to Australia.

The prison closed about 1890 (a buttress which once stood at the top of the prison’s river steps commemorates the prison – pictured above).

The site is now occupied by some of the more interesting buildings in the area – including the Chelsea College of Arts (buildings formerly used by the Royal Army Medical School, Tate Britain (which opened in 1897 as the National Gallery of British Art), and a housing development known as the Millbank Estate, constructed to providing housing for 4,500 members of the working class.

While the area was previously known for having been dominated by marshland, land was eventually reclaimed along the waterfront and an embankment established, defining the course of the river.

As well as the district, the name Millbank is also the name of the street which runs along the riverbank between the Houses of Parliament and Vauxhall Bridges.

October 3, 2013

• The Bard is back in Leicester Square with the announcement last week that restoration work on the square’s 19th century Grade II listed statue of William Shakespeare – the only full-length statue the playwright in central London – has been completed. The 11 month restoration was carried out as part of £17 million revamp of the square which has seen the installation of a new fountain. The statue, which was the work of James Knowles, has been in the square since it was completed in its current configuration in 1874. Meanwhile, in other sculpture-related news, Sorry, Sorry Sarajevo – a life-size statue of a man holding a dead or badly injured man in his arms has been placed in St Paul’s Cathedral where it will remain for the rest of the year. The work by Nicola Hicks dates from 1993 – when the Bosnian war was at its height – and has been placed opposite Henry Moore’s 1983 sculpture, Mother and Child: Hood as part of the cathedral’s approach to next year’s World War I centenary.

• Two new displays opened at the Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury last month.Hogarth and Copyright, which runs until 5th January, looks at the role the artist William Hogarth played in the passing of the 1735 Engravers’ Copyright Act (also known as Hogarth’s Act – it was the first law to protect artist’s rights over their work) while Handel and Lucretia, presented in conjunction with The Sir Denis Mahon Charitable Trust and running until 26th January, shows Guercino’s painting Lucretia alongside two early manuscripts of Handel’s cantata La Lucretia. Entry is part of admission price. For more, see www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk.

• A new exhibition tracing the history of attacks on artworks in Britain from the 16th century to today opened at Tate Britain in Millbank this week.Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm looks at why and how monuments have been damaged over the past 500 years. The display includes the remarkable pre-Reformation sculpture, the Statue of the Dead Christ (about 1500-1520), which was discovered in 1954 beneath the chapel floor at the Mercer’s Hall. Already damaged – most likely at the hands of Protestant iconoclasts – it may have been buried there to protect it. Also displayed are fragments of monuments destroyed in Ireland last century, paintings including Edward Burne-Jones’ 1898 painting Sibylla Delphica which was attacked by suffragettes in 1913-14, and Allen Jones’ 1969 work Chair – damaged in a feminist attack in 1986. Runs until 5th January. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

• A controversial exhibition of sexually explicit Japanese works of art created between 1600-1900 opened at the British Museum this week.Shunga: sex and pleasure in Japanese Art – which carries a warning of “parental guidance for visitors under 16 years – features 170 works including paintings, prints and illustrated books. Drawn from collections in the UK, Japan, Europe and the US, the exhibition of explores the phenomena of what are known as shunga (‘spring pictures’), looking at why it was produced and to whom it was circulated. Admission charge applies. Runs until 5th January. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org.

August 1, 2013

• A new exhibition marking the 90th anniversary of the iconic publication, Radio Times, opens at the Museum of London tomorrow (Friday).Cover Story: Radio Times at 90 features some of the magazines most famous covers depicting the likes of Tony Hancock, The Goon Show, Only Fools and Horses and Coronation Street, and charts the history of radio from the BBC’s first transmission to today’s multiple channels. As well as original artwork and photographs used in Radio Times, the display includes a special focus on Doctor Who with the chance for visitors to create their own Radio Times cover as they stand alongside a life-size Dalek. Other highlights include an original 1941 illuminated map used by the Luftwaffe which shows Radio Times‘ Waterlows printing plant in Park Royal alongside other targets. Radio Times was first published by the BBC in London on 29th September, 1923, and since 2011 has been owned by Immediate Media Co. The free exhibition runs until 3rd November. For more, check out www.museumoflondon.org.uk.

• The Imperial War Museum has partially reopened this week. As well as the re-opening of its permanent galleries and exhibitions, the museum has launched a major new family-oriented exhibition Horrible Histories: Spies, a new art exhibition entitled Architecture of War and ‘IWM Contemporary’, a new programme showcasing significant works by leading artists in response to war and conflict. The museum will fully reopen in summer next year with the opening of new First World War Galleries. Horrible Histories: Spies, which runs until 4th January (admission charge applies), immerses visitors in the world of World War II spycraft with families able to uncover the techniques used by the most cunning spies. More on Architecture of War and IWM contemporary in upcoming posts. For more, see www.iwm.org.uk.

• On Now: Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life. This exhibition at the Tate Britain represents the first to be held by a public London institution featuring the works of LS Lowry since his death in 1976 and is the first to explore his connections with French art. Among works on display is a little known, untitled painting depicting a busy town square set against the backdrop of industrial Salford which was found on the back of the wooden panel on which Lowry painted his 1937 work The Mission Room. Others among the 90 works on display include Coming Out Of School (1927), The Pond (1950), Industrial Landscape (1955) and Hillside in Wales (1962) as well as Ancoats Hospital Outpatients Hall (1952), The Cripples (1949), Piccadilly Circus, London (1960) and Excavating Manchester (1932). Runs until 20th October. For more, see www.tate.org.uk.

June 6, 2013

• The London Festival of Architecture has returned with a month long celebration of the city’s built form in a program of events including talks, tours and exhibitions. Among the latter is Lesser Known Architecture – A Celebration of Underappreciated London Buildings – a free exhibition at the Design Museum which runs until 22nd July and looks at 10 structures ranging from London Underground Arcades and Cabmen’s Shelters (one of which is pictured) to Nunhead Cemetery. Other events include an exhibition at Somerset House – Nicholas Hawksmoor: Methodical Imaginings – looking at churches designed by Hawksmoor in the late 17th and early 18th centuries (this runs until 1st September), and The Secret Society – A Sculptural Banquet, a large scale installation by artist and designer Kathy Dalwood at Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing, west London (ends this Sunday). For more on the festival, check out www.londonfestivalofarchitecture.org or for fringe events, http://londonarchitecturediary.com.

• A new exhibition featuring more than 100 images from space – including images of the colourful dust clouds in which new stars are formed, the aurora on the surface of Saturn and the sight of Earth from the International Space Station – opens at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich tomorrow.Visions of the Universe takes visitors on a “visual trip through our solar system” with images of the moon, sun, plants and distant galaxies. It looks at the development of telescopy and photography and examines our understanding of our place in the cosmos. Space scientists including Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees and The Sky at Night‘s Chris Lintott introduce each section of the exhibition which has at its centre a 13×4 metre curved wall known as the ‘Mars Window’. It has the latest images from NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover projected onto it. There is a programme of events accompanying the exhibition which runs until 15th September. For more, see www.rmg.co.uk.

• Tate Britain is undergoing an overhaul this year with the opening of new galleries and a rearrangement of the institution’s collection. Last month, a new chronological presentation of the institution’s British art opened across more than 2o of the institution’s galleries. BP Walk through British Art features around 500 artworks, dating from the 1500s to present day, by artists ranging from Sir Joshua Reynolds and William Hogarth to JMW Turner, John Constable, Lucien Freud and David Hockney. Meanwhile new galleries have opened dedicated to the works of sculptor Henry Moore and artist William Blake. Around 30 of Moore’s works are featured in the rooms as well as more than 40 of Blake’s works. For more see www.tate.org.uk.

• Apsley House, regency home of the Duke of Wellington, is hosting a series of events every weekend in June in the lead-up to the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Interpreters will be at the house, known as Number 1 London, this weekend to discuss the dress and manners of the era while next weekend (15th and 16th June) visitors have the chance to meet some of Wellington’s soldiers and their wives. Gentry from the Napoleonic era will be celebrating the victory at Waterloo on 22nd and 23rd June while on the final weekend of the month, the focus will be on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Vitoria in 1813, which led to eventual victory in the Peninsular War. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/apsley-house/.

• On Now: Coins and the Bible. This free exhibition at the British Museum looks at how money was referred to in the Old and New Testament, and the use of Christian symbols such as crosses or monograms derived from Greek letters on later coins. These include the first coin, dating from about 450 AD, to depict an image of Jesus (the coin, on loan from the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, is included in the exhibition). There are also early Biblical fragments on papyrus and vellum lent by the British Library and an ivory panel dating from the early 400s AD which includes an image of the purse of 30 pieces of silver Judas received after his betrayal of Jesus. Held in Room 69a, the exhibition runs until 20th October. For more, see www.britishmuseum.org.